Everything about Goat Island Port Jackson totally explained
Goat Island is a rocky island in
Sydney Harbour, in
New South Wales,
Australia. The island is some 400m by 200m in size and is located north-west of the
Sydney central business district.
Goat Island lies off the shores of the
Sydney suburbs of
Balmain and
Millers Point, at the junction of
Darling Harbour with the main channel of Sydney Harbour. Over the years Goat Island has served as a quarry, convict stockade, explosives store, police station, fire station, boatyard and film set. Today the island forms part of the
Sydney Harbour National Park.
History
Confusingly, some early maps of Sydney Harbour show the current Goat Island with the name
Cockatoo Island, whilst the current
Cockatoo Island is named
Banks Island. However by the late
1820s the naming of the two islands had stabilised at the current situation.
Whilst the use of Goat Island as both a naval arsenal and a convict stockade were discussed during the late
1820s, the first use of the island was in
1831, as a sandstone quarry. This use set the tone for much of the later life of the island, with the first of many bureaucratic disputes between the colony's local civil government and the local military establishment who reported directly to the
War Office in
London. In this case the
Surveyor General,
Major Thomas Mitchell, objected to the quarrying on the grounds that what was being quarried away was a valuable point for the purpose of defence, and quarrying soon ceased.
By the early
1830s there was considerable concern about the amount of military explosives being stored in the Commissariat in
The Rocks district of central
Sydney. In
1833 gangs of convicts started work quarrying stone and levelling ground on a site at the south-western side of the island. The powder magazine was completed by January
1839, and is a substantial, stone-built, bomb-proof construction. It was during this original period of construction that the convict
Charles Anderson was said to have been kept chained to a rock for two years. A stone cut couch, with fixing points for a platform and the wooden lid said to have provided him with shelter, can still be seen.
Also in the late
1830s, a water police station was built on Goat Island. This was constructed at the north-eastern tip of the island and at the opposite end from the magazine. For defensive reasons, and to provide a clear boundary between the domain of the police, part of the colonial civil government, and that of the military magazine, a water level ditch was cut to separate the north-eastern tip of the island from the bulk of the island. This 'cut' can still be seen today.
In
1854 a new Colonial Magazine was constructed to the north of the existing magazine, which became known as the Queen's Magazine. This was a building of much lighter construction, and was intended for the storage of civilian explosives belonging to the colonial government and local merchants. In
1864 the police station was converted into a laboratory for the preparation of cartridges, requiring the building of a bridge over the cut. The water police were moved to
Kirribilli. In the
1870s magazines were built on the east side of the island to house the new explosive
dynamite. By this time most of the storage of propellant powders and cartridge manufacturing had moved to nearby
Spectacle Island.
In
1900 all explosives were removed from Goat Island. The island is believed to have been used for a period in that year as a bacteriology station, for the investigation of the major outbreak of
bubonic plague in the nearby Rocks district, but firm evidence for this usage is lacking. What is certain is that by
1901 the island had become the depot for the
Sydney Harbour Trust, responsible for the maintenance of that body's significant fleet of
tugs,
dredgers and other floating plant. Over the following years until the mid-
1920s, the island saw the construction of a harbour master's house on the highest point of the island, together with four cottages for married members of the
fireboat crew stationed on the island, and a barracks for the unmarried members of the same crew.
Between
1925 and
1931 the magazine area to the south-weat of the island was converted into a shipyard for the repair of the trusts vessels and floating plant. Over the following years this has grown to include four
slipways, of 500 ton, 150 ton and 12 ton (x2) capacity respectively, plus a 770 foot wharf. The Colonial Magazine was recycled as a
shipwright's workshop, whilst the Queens Magazine became a general store. In
1936 the Sydney Harbour Trust was replaced by the
New South Wales Maritime Services Board, but the island retained its role.
The Maritime Services Board finally relinquished control of the island in
1995, and Goat Island became a unit of the
Sydney Harbour National Park.
During the mid to late
1990s, the island was used as a film-set for the Australian television series
Water Rats.
The island has also played host to rock concerts from
Midnight Oil in
1985 and
Green Day in
2000. Both were presented by radio station
Triple J.
Goat Island is currently closed for maintenance. There is no advertised date as to when the work will be completed and tours reinstated.
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